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Glenn Beck

Yesterday Fox News and Glenn Beck’s website “The Blaze” reported that a public school in Bulloch County, Ga., had banned Christmas cards. According to the Beck site, this was done because earlier this year Americans United had demanded that the school order teachers to “curtail religious expression while teaching.”

This past weekend, a collection of Religious Right groups, including the Family Research Council (FRC), American Family Association (AFA) and Liberty Counsel, held an event in Washington, D.C., called the Values Voter Summit (VVS). It’s an annual opportunity for the forces of the Religious Right to strategize on how they can “take America back.”

For the average Religious Right leader, getting into bed with Glenn Beck is usually a pretty good career move. After all, Beck’s empire still brings in boatloads of cash despite his expulsion from Fox News. The problem is Beck himself isn’t exactly picky about his partners, and that can lead to serious embarrassment – as Family Research Council Executive Vice President William G. “Jerry” Boykin recently discovered.

You could say that this has been the winter of David Barton’s discontent.

Barton, a Texas-based pseudo-historian who for years has made a living telling gullible Religious Right audiences that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation and church-state separation is a myth, has run into quite a streak of trouble lately.

Since “Christian nation” propagandist David Barton’s book about Thomas Jefferson has been debunked, it seems the Texas-based “historian” has set his sights on a new cause: defending the Second Amendment. But just like Barton’s assertions about Jefferson, his latest claims reek of fiction.

If you’re like me, your email inbox often contains items of a questionable nature. Despite spam filters, I still get the occasional message from a Nigerian government official offering me millions or notice that I’ve won a European lottery that I never entered.

But as far as I’m concerned, chain emails of a political nature are the worst: Here’s proof President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fake! Join this plan to bombard the ACLU with Christmas cards! Mitt Romney can still be president if one-third of the states refuse to cast ballots in the Electoral College!

Barton is looking forward to the ADF’s Sept. 26 “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” during which pastors will openly violate the law by endorsing or opposing candidates from the pulpit. Beck seemed taken with the idea as well.

Now that Glenn Beck’s Lincoln Memorial rally is over, it’s time to step back and ask the all-important question: What the heck was that all about?

Beck portrayed the “Restoring Honor” event as a celebration of civil rights. But the reporting I read about the bombastic Fox News Channel host’s D.C. get together made some of it sound more like a fundamentalist religious revival.